Triptiks

[thenetwork]

This should be one fun thread

I always thought the AAA Triptiks were awesome...For one thing, in the 50's thru the early 80s, they could never keep up with all the new freeway sections opening up, so it was always fun seeing the recommended routes with and without the freeways.  I also liked the descriptions of the section traveling, and estimated time, plus all of the markings the AAA would put on it for construction, speed traps, rough road,...

How many collectors of Triptiks are there out there?  How many do you have?  What are your oldest?  Any scans of interesting routes or strip maps (where freeways weren't done yet)?  Other Musings, etc.

I actually picked up one at an antiques store that dates back from the 50's -- it has yellow strips (no folded pages) and was a routing from Mansfield, OH to Los Angeles, CA via US-42, US-40 & US-66.  It also included motel & atttactions information & very small advertisements (I assume this was in the pre-Tour Book days).  I also have a special place for the Triptiks since I worked at AAA marking them for many summers during my college years.

BTW, Once AAA went to "personalized" computer-generated maps that look almost like Google Maps, that's when the real era of Triptiks ended.   

[exit322]

Agreed, the tripiks they have now are very poor.  Not even worth it anymore for me to go get them.

I've got a handful.  One from 1972 that I got from a family friend, a few from this decade (two from 2004 from our honeymoon).  Not a huge collection, but it's something that could be more interesting to have in the future.

[un1]

All of ours are new, sadly. However, we have about 4 now, Thunder Bay-South Padre Island x2 and Thunder Bay-Key West x2 (one is routed through Montgomery). All of those are from the 4 past years, so I'm not really a huge collector.

[LeftyJR]

I had a triptik back in the late 90s that told me to drive to Maine across the Massachusetts/Vermont border instead of on a road!  Its a good thing I looked at it before we left!

[oscar]

I used to get TripTiks ahead of every major trip I took, at least through the mid-1990s.  But I long ago switched over to MS Streets and Trips, largely because my itineraries started getting more complicated and with more off-Interstate driving (where TripTiks were never really useful).  The only thing I missed about the old TripTiks is clear markings for rest areas.

I sifted through all my old files over the holidays, and don't recall seeing any of my old TripTiks.

[Alex]

I have one TripTik here in my collection (from the 1970s I believe), and about a half-dozen or so stored in a box with other maps in my Mom's basement.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

My grandparents were big on AAA and triptiks.  I got one, from the mid 60s that routed my grandparents (and my mom) on a cross country trip from Philadelphia to St. Louis to the Grand Canyon up to Yellowstone on back to Chicago and returning home to Philly.  I recall SR 43 for the Sure-kill, SR 71 for I-70 between New Stanton and Washington and all the city and bypass US routes for St. Louis and Chicago.
Of course this triptik is in Baton Rouge while I'm in Ohio, so I can't easily go back double check the strip maps and city maps.   

[akotchi]

In the mid-1970's, my grandparents frequently did the triangle between southeastern Florida, Two Rivers, WI, and Lancaster, PA, and they always got Triptiks.  I always kept the older ones to compare to the newer ones to see what sections of highway were completed.

Such a shame I did not hang on to those old strips. . .

[mightyace]

I know my parents got them even though the main trip they got them for (Bloomsburg, PA - West Allis, WI) we had done many times.

I think I have kept some of them, but I don't know how many or where they were.  They were mildly interesting, but I've always preferred the whole map.

On a similar note, does anyone else remember the Amoco/Standard (Oil of Indiana) regional maps that had the strip maps on the back?

[FLRoads]

I haven't thought much about TripTiks since I worked at AAA and actually was one of the people who would QA/QC them. I would have to perform "quick" checks of them to make sure that each interchange had the right Food, Lodging, Gas logo, all the proper Points of Interests were there, the mileage was correct on both sides of the map, etc., etc... Of course, being the road and map enthusiast that I am, I would always ensure that the information was correct, so it would take me a bit longer to return them back to production...

I do know that the original TripTiks were plated much like the main atlases, while the one's created in the late 80 into the mid 2000's were in MicroStation (using computer equipment that easily looked like it was from the early 1980's!! Their current method of creating TripTiks involves using AI and then saving them to PDF format. Seems a shame really...

[hbelkins]

I have a few of them. I had a great uncle from Michigan who was in AAA, and since he knew I was a map geek at a young age, he'd bring AAA maps and TripTiks when he came to visit.

You can still get the old-style strip maps. Whenever I call the Lexington office for a routing, they'll ask if I want the old style or the new computer-generated ones. I always ask for the old-style ones. If you use their Web site to request, them, you automatically get the new style. Plus you can't ask for city maps online; only state and regional.

Two roadgeeks who may not be active in this forum, Jason Ilyes from Tennessee and Barry Camp from Michigan, have spouses who work for AAA.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

On a similar note, does anyone else remember the Amoco/Standard (Oil of Indiana) regional maps that had the strip maps on the back?

I remember those quite well.  I know my parents had one.  I can't remember if I have said map in my collection, still with my parents, or decaying somewhere in Central Ohio.

[hbelkins]

Got the AAA package for my wife's trip to Nashville, Fort Worth and Houston last Saturday. Just opened it last night. The Triptik was the old-fashioned strip map kind.

And they actually have a strip for US 59 from Houston to Texarkana, which is how they routed her back to Kentucky instead of along I-10 to I-59, which is the way most of the web sites and software packages prefer.

[Tom]

Agreed, the tripiks they have now are very poor.  Not even worth it anymore for me to go get them.

I've got a handful.  One from 1972 that I got from a family friend, a few from this decade (two from 2004 from our honeymoon).  Not a huge collection, but it's something that could be more interesting to have in the future.

I believe AAA's triptiks from the 1960's are the best.